


Buried in Snow

by NanakiBH



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Cannibalism, Christmas Eve, Kissing, Licking, M/M, True Love, Tsukikane Week, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved this mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buried in Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for day 6 of Tsukikane Week; Christmas Eve/Delicacy.

“Vous trouvé.”

Kaneki looked up at him with the eyes of an animal, a vicious red penetrating his irises. His mask was hanging open, blood covering his lips and cheeks, dripping down his chin as he chewed. Tsukiyama hadn't known where he had gone, but it wasn't that difficult to find him. By following his scent and asking some of the neighborhood ghouls about him along the way, he was able to track him down to this one snowy street. Following the bloody cries of a struggling ghoul until those cries ceased, he found himself standing in a dark back lot.

It was late, and there were few cars remaining in the lot, but it wasn't an ideal place to have a meal. They were in a residential area that was also home to a few shops. It wouldn't be long before someone walked behind the building and found Kaneki feasting on a fresh corpse. And then what did he plan to do? Kill the human who spotted him? This wasn't like his Kaneki at all.

There was something different about him.

Tsukiyama thought it seemed strange that he would leave the house on Christmas Eve. Hinami was so happy about their tree and all of the Christmas movies he brought over for her to watch. They were going to open gifts in the morning, but she was anxiously awaiting midnight when she would be allowed to open one of them. Kaneki should have been there with them, having a good time. It just wasn't the same without his presence. It was like Hinami couldn't even have fun without him. More importantly, everyone acted like he shouldn't be there when Kaneki wasn't there.

That was why he left. Their suspicious eyes were making him feel stifled, so he put on his coat and scarf and left the house to get some fresh air. He didn't want to stay where he wasn't welcome. The Christmas Eve streets felt a lot more welcoming than they did, the stores lit up with Christmas lights, red and green decorations in their windows. Girls in short red dresses with white faux fur fringe offered him tissues and gestured to the shops they were advertising for, offering a warm place to stop.

It was tempting. His fingers and toes were getting numb from the cold, even with his thick gloves and boots. Those girls must have had it even worse, he imagined. He couldn't understand why anyone would agree to stand outside for hours getting hypothermia in a tiny outfit, no matter how much they were being paid to do it. He would much rather be sitting near a fire with a steaming cup of coffee cradled in his hands... With the object of his obsessions comfortably sitting beside him.

With that image of perfection held at the front of his mind to motivate him, he made his way through the snowy night in search of Kaneki.

He wasn't surprised when he found him. Even if he didn't understand why, he knew that Kaneki must have left for a reason. Looking at him as he sat crouched over a freshly killed ghoul, he seemed different from usual. Calmly, Tsukiyama went closer to him and stood near him, but kept his distance from the widening ring of red snow around the body. He didn't want to get his shoes dirty.

The streetlight above them put a ghastly shadow over Kaneki's face, making his skin look almost pure white. He didn't look sick, but he did look stressed. There was something eating at him. As he dug his bare fingers back into the dead man's stomach and pulled out a steaming string of intestines and brought it to his mouth, Tsukiyama could clearly see the complicated emotion in his eyes.

“You shouldn't be eating that,” he admonished. “You should cut and clean intestines before you eat them.”

Making a face, Kaneki dropped them and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You're right. That was a bad decision,” he coughed. He stared at the body for a few moments like he didn't know what to do with it anymore. Although his ghoul eye was black, he didn't appear to be very hungry.

“What are you doing all the way out here? Were you really that desperate for a snack? Hinami and the others are waiting for you. You should be back at home with us.”

Using Hinami's name was an easy way to guilt Kaneki into responding honestly. Hearing her name made his shoulders tense, and he looked away, toward the dark end of the snowy lot. Tsukiyama didn't like to make him uncomfortable, especially while he was still trying to regain his trust, but he wanted to know what possessed him to go out on a solo hunt like this all of a sudden.

“Home, huh...” Kaneki's eyes drifted back to the body in front of him, but it was difficult for him to keep his eyes on it. “I don't belong there. I don't deserve to be there with Hinami right now. I tried to have fun, but nothing felt right. This is supposed to be a cheerful holiday, right? I didn't want to stay there and drag everyone down.”

Turning over a palm, he looked at his bloody fingers for a moment before lifting his hand to his mouth to lick at them with disinterest.

The wind picked up a little, making Tsukiyama wrap his arms around himself. “Despite whatever idea you had, things are worse without you. They need you there.”

“No one needs me. It's dangerous for them to even be with me. I only went out for a walk and look where it got me; elbow-deep in some ghoul's guts. I didn't mean for this.” He gave his hand another look. Some blood still clung to his fingers, but he couldn't bring himself to use his tongue to remove the rest of it. His brows pulled together tightly, he put his hand into the white snow around him and waved it around in it to try to clean it off.

Tsukiyama tilted his head. Whatever happened here, he was sure there was a decent explanation for it. “This guy was probably asking for it. Did he recognize you as the one-eyed ghoul? The Centipede? There have been rumors spreading about you already, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if you said he wanted to kill you.”

“Yeah... But that's the problem. I don't want that kind of attention. I don't want to have to fight anyone. If someone tries to attack me, then I don't really have any choice, though. It's because of who I am now. This is who I am.” He was sounding rattled, like each thought was driving him farther into madness. He put his face in his hands, smearing the blood around, and pressed the heel of his palms to his eyes. “This guy probably had people who cared about him. It's Christmas Eve. What the fuck am I doing? I killed a man on Christmas Eve. And you think I should go back home?”

There had to be a way to calm him. He wasn't used to seeing him like this. Something may have happened to the old, gentle Kaneki during his visit with Aogiri, but Tsukiyama knew that he was still the same person. Kaneki treated himself like he was someone else now, but that just wasn't true. He was always the same person, just evolving and changing, developing into the person he was meant to be. The accident that turned him into a ghoul may have changed the course of his life, but it wasn't something that had to ruin it. It was something to adapt to.

“Kaneki-kun...” His thoughts on this were probably very different from Kaneki's. It occurred to him that it might be wise for him to keep his mouth shut. Right now, Kaneki didn't look like he wanted to hear a lecture. He didn't want to be told that he should embrace his ghoul side. He was already trying.

“I can't even eat him. That would be the least I could do now, but I can't even do that much. What kind of person kills someone on Christmas Eve and just leaves the body to be picked apart by the doves?” He pulled his hands away from his face, but he kept his eyes tightly shut. “I'm just a monster.”

That was the point where Tsukiyama couldn't stand there any longer, simply listening. Pinching the index finger of one of his gloves between his teeth, he tugged it off. Moving around the mess that Kaneki made in the snow, he knelt next to him and placed his fingers against Kaneki's jaw, grasped his chin, and tilted his head toward him, demanding that he look at him.

“Don't say things like that.”

Kaneki looked at him, right into his eyes, like he was trying to defy him to find a reason for him to listen. Putting a hand around Tsukiyama's wrist, he pulled his hand away from him. His eyes narrowed and he challenged him with a smile. “Oh? Why not? Just look at me.”

So he did. He saw the blood on his face, his pale lips stained in red, the warmth that was slowly returning to his face as he held his eyes. He wasn't a cold person. Even surrounded by falling snow, Tsukiyama felt something from him that made him forget where he was.

Fondly, he smiled. “You look beautiful, mon cher.”

Kaneki sniffed. “Only a ghoul could say that,” he mumbled. The way he said it, he wasn't trying to offend him. It was just a light jab. Tsukiyama knew not to take it so seriously. It sounded like he had cracked past the first layer of ice and was swiftly making his way to the warm person inside.

“I don't see a monster,” Tsukiyama said. This time, when he placed his palm against Kaneki's cheek, Kaneki didn't push his arm away. “The person who can kill someone without remorse, the one who kills for the fun of it, the one who kills to entertain themselves... That person is no person at all. But you aren't that person. You aren't a monster.”

A faint, amused look cracked Kaneki's chilly expression. “Then what does that make you? I distinctly remember being used for your entertainment...”

“That's all in the past. As they say, let bygones be bygones, Kaneki-kun. I'm starting from a new leaf.” Lightly, he stroked Kaneki's cheek, wiping a little bit of the blood off with his thumb. Inspired, he leaned in and gave his cheek a quick swipe with his tongue. Kaneki grimaced and stayed quiet, allowing him to repeat the same to his other cheek. The stranger's blood tasted stale and bitter; an unhealthy flavor. “You deserve to be eating better than this.”

“I don't deserve anything. This man didn't deserve to die.”

Tsukiyama frowned. Putting his hands on his knees, he stood with a sigh and extended his hand for Kaneki to take. Kaneki looked at it like a foreign thing, but grasped it loosely and allowed himself to be pulled up along with him. Instead of letting him go, Tsukiyama held onto his hand, gripping it firmly, feeling the faint warmth of Kaneki's fingers against his.

“I told you not to say things like that,” Tsukiyama said. “He made his decision to attack you which means that he was prepared to die. Now that you're one of us, you have to understand that 'fair' has a different meaning. Everything is unfair. The only way that you can justify your actions is to weigh them by what the best decision for yourself would be. You did the right thing. A ghoul can't live with guilt for the things they can't control.” He shook his head. “No, that probably goes for anyone. The world is like that.”

For a second, Kaneki's fingers loosened, his gaze dropping, going somewhere far away in that second, like the thing he said had resonated with him in some way and made him think. A breath passed his lips, warm enough to cloud the air, but not a word made it out. His fingers tightened around Tsukiyama's hand, and he simply nodded instead.

“Indeed, look at you,” Tsukiyama murmured softly, lifting his other hand to hold his shoulder.

He was the most perfect thing; a combination of everything that made the world difficult and beautiful. Kaneki looked at him with a softening expression, his left eye returning from black and red to its normal color, revealing the delicate face of the person Tsukiyama was familiar with. There were so many layers to him, it was hard to choose which one he would eat first. He wanted to dig in all at once, but he also wanted to take his time, to savor him slowly, to discover what each of those layers tasted like on their own before he swallowed him whole.

“Uh... Tsukiyama-san...”

Keeping their hands together, Tsukiyama leaned in again and licked his jaw. Kaneki grumbled, but allowed him to do it, squeezing his eyes shut with burning cheeks as he cleaned his face with his tongue. The blood was disgusting, but he couldn't let Kaneki walk home looking like that. Even if it was dark, someone might notice the conspicuous splash of blood across his face and get concerned. He was just doing him a favor.

And his taste... Well...

It was his own damnable curiosity that made him lick Kaneki's lips. It was that curiosity to blame when he let go of Kaneki's hand so he could hold his face. It was Kaneki's alluring scent and taste that made him close his eyes.

One of Kaneki's hands grasped the front of his coat and pulled him close. Saving himself for Kaneki only, Tsukiyama was hungry, starved for his taste. When he cracked open his eyes to look at Kaneki's face, his vision swam and something made his heart throb when he saw the steady look that he now held in his eyes.

That was it; the look he was looking for.

This flavor was surely the thing that gave everything else a meaning.

He felt the sharp pinch of Kaneki's teeth against his tongue before he was pushed away. As the taste of his own blood settled over his tongue, he felt pleased by how far Kaneki had let him indulge himself.

Kaneki, however, didn't look as happy.

“That was my first, you bastard,” he snapped, wiping at his face with his sleeves.

Tsukiyama raised his brows, confused. “Your first...?”

“You're seriously going to make me say it?” With an indignant huff, he kicked him in the shin. “That was my first kiss. You think I'm just going to let you get away with that? Were you determined to make this night worse for me?”

“Kiss...?”

Tsukiyama paused to think about this.

He couldn't remember kissing him. He licked his face and his lips, and then he stuck his tongue in his mouth to taste him and...

“Oh... That... Kaneki-kun, I didn't mean that to be a- I mean, I've never...”

With a vicious growl, Kaneki grabbed him again and smashed their mouths together, sealing their lips together with undeniable finality. This was most definitely a kiss this time; there was no arguing about it. Tsukiyama was too stunned to react and still too surprised to even return it once he realized what was happening, and it was all over a lot faster than he would've liked.

“There. Now if you had any question about it, I stole yours too, so don't make a fuss about it.”

That was something worth making a fuss about, though, but he tried not to say anything about it. Inside, Tsukiyama's thoughts were yelling loudly, very confused and oddly excited. He hadn't even intended for that to be a kiss and now he had just came away from this misunderstanding with a kiss from Kaneki.

A thought suddenly struck him and he pushed back his sleeve to check his watch.

“Would you look at that? It's exactly one minute after midnight. Merry Christmas, Kaneki-kun.”

Without asking, he quickly stole an innocent kiss on the lips and jumped out of the way before Kaneki could hit him. He saw it coming this time.

Kaneki chased after him, his face hot and furious. “The only reason I'm not going to kill you right now is because it's Christmas. That's your present, got it? I'm letting you have your life! You should thank me!”

What probably looked like a scene from a horror film to the average human onlooker was, to Tsukiyama, like something from his dreams. Without any heat to back his threats, Kaneki chased him through the snow, nearly tripping over himself as he tried to catch him. When they reached the sidewalk, Tsukiyama noticed that he'd stopped, so he slowed down and returned to him, curious about the look on his face.

“I still feel bad,” he said.

Tsukiyama wrapped an arm around his shoulders and started walking with him down the sidewalk, back to where the streets were lit and lined with shops. “What's the matter? Are you still thinking about that pile of meat back there? That's not something for you to worry about. I thought I already told you that.”

“It's not just that. It's everything.” He gently shrugged Tsukiyama's arm off of his shoulder, but he continued to walk at his pace. “I've lost just about everything. I feel like I don't know whose life I'm living anymore.”

Tsukiyama tried not to allow any personal feelings in his pursuit, but it still hurt to hear him say something like that. If not for himself, then he had to feel bad for the girl who was waiting for him back at the house. Hinami really cared about him. In his own way, Tsukiyama was willing to admit that he cared about him, too. He wanted to regain his trust for his own reasons, but he also wanted Kaneki to see him as someone important. He didn't know why he wanted that. It might've just been like an achievement; something to make him feel accomplished along the way to make his success feel even more satisfying when he finally seized the opportunity to eat him.

He didn't like sounding philosophical, but Kaneki looked like someone who could use the words of someone who spent a lot of time thinking by himself.

“You're still you. You're just experiencing the world in a different way now. I think it would help if you tried to focus on what's important to you. Think about the things that you want, then find the one thing that will make everything else feel like it has meaning.”

Rubbing his cold hands together, Kaneki slowly absorbed his suggestion. After a moment, he smirked and turned to look at him. “That reminds me – did you ever find it? The 'cheese', that is.”

Surprised, Tsukiyama lifted his brows. “You remember our conversation.” His answer ready, he gave him a significant smile. “In fact, I believe have.”

Feeling the warmth of his eyes on him, Kaneki bashfully pulled his hood over his head and quickened his pace.

Tsukiyama didn't need to know the flavor of Christmas cookies or cake or baked ham and roast pork. There wasn't a single thing missing from his life now. As long as there was Kaneki, life's flavors were limitless.


End file.
